Memoirs of a CPUNERD

This week brought me to my first academic and commercial conference, Supercomputing 2007. I must say that I was pleased with the experience. I attended workshops the first two days, both of which were informative. The next three days, I wandered around the exhibit hall, talking with vendors, universities, national labs, and getting a bunch of free stuff. I planned to attend two more paper presentations, but when I went to see them at their scheduled day and time, neither was there. I think that there were room and schedule changes that were not propagated. The conference ended with a performance by the Blue Man Group at the Grand Sierra Resort. I think I would’ve enjoyed the entire conference much more if I wasn’t sick, but it was still very worthwhile.

On Monday morning, I went to the first half of the Ultrascale Visualization workshop. Kwan-Liu hosted it, in conjunction with Chris Johnson of Utah University. Chad presented some work as well. After the first half, Chad, Hongfeng, and I went out to lunch at the Claim Jumper. Another SciDAC student from Virginia named Blake joined us. I skipped the second half of the workshop and went to Sinead’s birthday party for a few hours. The highlight was probably the numerous games of twister. After the party, I went back home, got changed, and then went to Silver Peak with Chad, John, Sebastian, and Jesse. After dinner, Chad and I went to the gala. We walked around, grabbed some free stuff, and talked with some new people. After the gala, Chad and I went to the Little Wal. I went to the men’s room to call Shakeh, and while in there, some girl walked in. The conversation went thusly:

Me: “Yes, you have the wrong room.”

Her: “…”

Me: “…”

Her: “… Do you have a cigarette?”

Me: “No”

At this point she looks at me from head to toe back to head. I feel it is also prudent at this point to mention that I was wearing a blue glowstick necklace from Intel.

Me: “I’m sorry. I don’t smoke.”

Her: “Do you have any ecstacy?”

Now I’m looking at her with the most serious face I can muster.

Me: “No”

Her: “Then why are you wearing that necklace?”

Me: “Oh. I got this from a conference. Bye.”

She leaves now. I finish my conversation with Shakeh, then go back out to the table. I look in horror as I sit down and notice that this girl has joined our table and is trying to talk to Chad. Chad also recognizes the face I made and just laughs. As time progresses, this girl talks in such ways as to make it completely obvious that she is on something, and not just alcohol. She goes to buy a pitcher of beer so that she can stay at our table. I am not pleased, but Chad could deal with the free beer so I don’t completely mind. She wanders off a little later, and Chad interjects that he thinks he can get a picture of her breasts if he tried. I told him that he could (she mentioned that she “liked” him when Chad was not at the table), and that he should try. He said that he couldn’t do something like that. When she came back to the table, I asked if we could get a picture of her. She didn’t seem too thrilled, but then Chad said “Yeah, let us get a picture of you” and she was immediately up for it. She stood behind me, Chad aimed the camera, and right before it went click, she decides to flash the camera! Yes, Chad got the picture. No, you can’t see it. Anyways, more crazy conversation happens, she tells Chad she wants to marry him, we get tired of her, and then we leave. Now Chad has a “I met a crazy girl in Reno” story.

I slept in on Tuesday, getting up at 0745. I worked out for an hour and a half, then went to Jamba Juice on the way to the convention center. I spent pretty much all day trying to get entries for free iPods and 360s. For lunch, Adrienne, John, Chad, Eric, and I wen to P. F. Chang’s. Chad and I went back to the conference for the afternoon, then up to Bully’s Galena for pizza with Bei. After about three hours, we left and went home. Chad and I went to Brew Brothers with Randy for a few hours.

Wednesday morning I went to Jamba Juice for breakfast (again, this is a recurring theme). This time, instead of gathering free stuff, I spent most of the day talking to national labs instead of trying to get free stuff. Chad left with Kwan-Liu at lunch time, so Dan Coming and I went to lunch. We went to Red Robin, and I was actually quite impressed with their chicken burgers. In the afternoon, I went to a Mellanox presentation, and at the end of the day, I won a nano video! w00t! For dinner, I went to Silver Peak on Wonder street with Sebastian, Jesse, Lance, and Dan.

Thursday brought another day and another round of Jamba Juice for breakfast. The cold that I thought I was over came back with a vengeance. I met up with Dan in the Atlantis parking lot, then wandered around the exhibit floor again. I looked at a lot of the sci vis booths, went to another Mellanox presentation, and won$50 to iTunes. Dan and I went to Chevy’s for lunch. In the afternoon, Lance and I got tickets to see the Blue Man Group at the GSR. Before the show, I went to grab a quick bite at Jimmy John’s with my Mike. I didn’t stay long though. Due to some misleading information, I got to the GSR almost two hours early. Argh! After the show, went upstairs to get some free food, then went hom because I was feeling like absolute crap.

On Friday, I woke up, took a survey of swag (it is swag, not schwag! you can only say schwag if you’re german. schwag is bad weed, swag is free stuff. Don’t believe me? Go look it up). I got back into Davis around 1300, then headed into the lab to fill out my reimbursement forms. After that, I went home and rested, then headed to Woodland to pick up Shakeh and Ita. Shakeh and I went to Fuzio for dinner around 2000, then stopped by Safeway for some cold medicine. After that, we went home, and I just went to sleep.

We had Noah’s for “brunch” at 1100. We went back home and worked through the afternoon. For dinner, Shakeh and I tried to La Esperanza. We then headed to the movie theatre on G street to see Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium. After the movie, we went to Matthias’ place for Family Guy and to watch people play beer pong.

Sunday was an incredibly uneventful day. We went to Posh Bagel for breakfast, and then just worked most of the afternoon. I joined the guys for football practice, but I wasn’t feeling well so I just watched.

In case you were wondering, following is a final list of all the crap I got from SC07. Some pictures can be found here.

one 8GB iPod nano video.

$50 to iTunes.

three backpacks. one pleather from SC, one single-shoulder bag from intel. one really nice high sierra bag from MS.

one laser pointer, one torch (flashlight).

at least thirty pens.

three necklace lanyards

four pint glasses (a la intel) and one martini glass. ZERO shot glasses (wtf?!)

6 containers of mints, one bag of nvidia m&ms.

one fake seashell necklace.

three coffee mugs.

one water bottle.

one set of juggling balls.

one black top hat (MS branded)

10GB of thumb drives. three verari 1GB, two intel 1GB, one MS 1GB, one MS 4GB (i dont think this was supposed to be given away).

four bundles of blue glow sticks.

four sets of ipod speakers.

1 rubik’s cube.

three sets of playing cards (one round set).

four shirts. none of which i intend to wear.

one TSA approved luggage lock.

three luggage tags.

one usb powered (ie meant for laptops) light.

one 9cm flimsy frisbee.

nine tote bags (finally, no more plastic bags at the grocery store!).

My guess is that most of my friends who read this are somewhat democratic/liberal in their thoughts. Obviously there are some exceptions, but this piece of prose is directed at those who will be voting in the democratic primary. I was talking with my brother the other day, and he related a very interesting predicament. As anyone who isn’t living under a rock knows, the two democratic front-runners are Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. As far as republican front-runners go… I have no idea. My brother pointed me towards an interesting survey. Many republicans surveyed said that they are so disheartened by their party’s recent performance that they were even considering voting for a democrat. However, this came with a stipulation. Virtually every one polled also said that they are tired of government dynasties, the Bush family is an example. What they don’t want is another Clinton in the White House. What does this mean to you? Well, if you believe the poll, this means that many republicans might vote fordemocrat, unless Hillary is the democratic nominee. Now, I haven’t decided my vote for the democratic nominee, but should I take this poll seriously? Should I be bullied into blindly voting for the next best thing besides Hillary (assuming I wanted to vote for her, which right now I don’t)? Personally, I think that most polls like these are utter crap and will just vote for the candidate that I feel will do the best job. But that’s me. What about you? Would results like these sway your vote? What would the numbers have to be to sway you from voting for your favorite candidate in fears that republicans would pull another 2000 or 2004?

On Monday, I forgot my headphones. Argh! To make matters worse, I had to ride a recumbent bike since all the regular bikes were in use. I’ve now come to realize that the muscles used while riding a recumbent bike are indeed different than when riding an upright bike. After the bike, I went to tennis and continued working on my serve. It’s coming along, though I still need a lot of practice and repetition. Volleyball was also good, in that my arm wasn’t giving my any crap. I went to the MU for lunch and was joined by a few extras including Justin, Vanessa, and Miles’ girlfriend Jen. I headed to my research meeting and then to the lab to get a memtest going. While the test was running, I met with Bill for some bowling and billiards. I’m pleased to say I didn’t lose at everything = \ I headed back for our MGI meeting and found that my machine did indeed have memory problems, hurray… After the meeting, I went home and worked while watching MNF.

I tumbled again on Tuesday, and I didn’t have any problems. I played John in racquetball after I finished a squash match against Coach Clink. We had an extended football practice, even going so far as to venture to the fields at Hutchison. After practice, I went to Applebee’s with the guys. Shakeh called near the end, and I was treated to my first “bloke in a pub” treatment. I took off from the restaurant, picked her up, took her to Fuji’s, then went to B&R for some wonderful dessert.

I went to Pluto’s for lunch with Shakeh on Wednesday. I ventured to the lab afterwards to run another memtest, then went to an in-person interview with Apple. The interview went fine, and I was told I would get at least a phone interview later on. Later that night, I met up with Javi, Daniel, Justin, and Pieter for dinner. We went to Thai Recipes. The food was actually really good there, and it was hot enough for Justin (he was actually sweating). There were two girls sitting near us at another table who were both very entertaining and incredibly annoying. The sentence “like totally actually for sure” serves to sum it up quite nicely. After dinner, I quickly ran to Sophia’s to say happy birthday to Paloma, then we all went to get some yogurt at the Yogurt Shack. Paul met up with us there as daniel was leaving. After yogurt, we went back to my place and watched Snatch. I forgot how much I liked that movie. Though… will someone please explain to me why Brad Pitt was one of the four guys involved in the diamond robbery?

Holy crap! My bike’s derailer literally exploded Thursday on my way to the gym. I was riding, and my chain came off. When that happens, I usually can just keep pedaling and the chain will catch again and re-engage. However, this time, the chain got pulled very tight, then snapped loose, wrapped around itself, and formed a kink. Before I could stop, that kink went into the derailer and BAM!!! I stopped, turned around, and walked my bike back on foot. Luckily, I had my other bike. Unluckily, I practically have an ulcer whenever that bike is not parked safely indoors. Anyways, I’m looking forward to going to Reno, and not just for the conference. Working out in the morning is just killing me. I think it’s all the extra sports that I’m playing, because when I do my cardio ride in the morning, I can’t keep my heart rate up because it’s so hard on my leg muscles. In racquetball, I played four matches with John, winning one and losing three. I take consolation in the fact that two out of the three that I lost, I lost 14-15. In frisbee, we played a full game instead of two small games. When I got home, I got a call from Shakeh. She was really rushed and freaking out about her lab report, so I helped her format it. After I got back home, I showered, then took my bike to the bike shop. I got into the MU at 1345. I ate lunch and chatted with some friends, then headed with Ita and Pphelie to meet Shakeh at the Commons. We got Jamba Juice while Shakeh got Habit Burger. After that, I went back to the bike shop to sign off on my bike. Two-hundred and thirty dollars! Jesus… When I got home, I headed to pick up Ken, then we headed back to my place and watched some Family Guy. After that was over, we headed to the match. Unfortunately we were handed our first loss of the season, 2-3. It wasn’t that bad of a loss, except the guys we played against were a bunch of floppers. I’m not just saying that, and I’m not sour grapes. Several times, when one of our guys had an advantage on a ball, their guy would create contact and fall down in an attempt to draw a whistle. It was really pathetic. I really, Really, REALLY, wanted to level one or two of them, because all they would do is bitch and moan instead of actually playing. The worst part you ask? One of them spiked Bill hard, and instead of stopping play, they continued playing. I had to literally scream at them and run up and almost crash into their ball handler to get them to stop. Luckily, they had some guys who were genuinely good. They were very fast, and technically sound. Those guys I had no problem with. Afterwards, shakeh and I got ready and went to our salsa lessons. We learned the hook turn, and we were also shown two cross-body turns. We finished with that, then went to Kathmandu Kitchen to say hello to Giovanni and his group, and we also caught Anuja and Bbhi’s group. After saying hello and goodbye, we went to Woodstock’s for dinner, then to Ita’s for an after-match night cap. I was getting really tired though, so we only stayed for an hour and a half (though she was kicking everyone out at 0030 anyways).

On Friday, I went out to lunch with Shakeh at Raja’s. I dont know why I’ve been avoiding the place! It was very decent Indian food, and they have a lunch buffet! I drove from there straight to Reno. I made it over the hill and home just in time for my phone interview with Apple. For dinner, I met up with Jesse, Dye, Kenyon, and Randy at the Bully’s at the mall. We had some good old-fashioned nerd conversation for three hours, then I went home after that and hung out with the parents for an hour before going to sleep.

With Saturday came the realization that the conference was holding only something for the education program (so I came down a day early pretty much). I decided to work out early in the morning so I wouldn’t have to do that during the week. I watched College Game Day and finished my workout. The parents and I went to see Fred Claus around noon. The movie was good, though a bit too childish for my taste. I still enjoyed it though. After the movie, I went home and worked on some seismology stuff, then had dinner with the parents and Vicky. Frank cooked steaks. Holy crap! It has been so long since I’ve had a real steak, it tasted so good. For dessert, I bought some Coldstone for the first time in several months. Tasty indeed.

Sunday was the first real day of the conference. I went to the first half of the petascale storage workshop. I had to bail early so I could go to the mall and get a present for Sinead. I also took the opportunity to look for pants, but didn’t have much luck. I headed home home and worked for a while longer, before going to Lisa’s for dinner. I got to meet Adrienne’s boyfriend Eric. He seemed like a very nerdy person, so we got along great. I also got to see Michelle and Michael for the first time in several months.